So you would think I might be depressed, but I’m actually in a good mood.

Not because I’m surrounded by millions of socialists, but because voters in my home state just punished a couple of entrenched incumbent Republican politicians who sided with special interest groups and voted to rape and pillage taxpayers.

Two 20-year veterans of Virginia’s House of Delegates lost their seats Tuesday, falling to GOP primary challengers who assailed their support for a tax-heavy transportation funding overhaul. Del. Joe T. May (Loudoun) and Del. Beverly J. Sherwood (Frederick) lost to political newcomers who railed against the transportation plan, which imposes a $1.2-billion-a-year tax increase. … No sitting Republican delegate had faced a primary challenge since 2005, when activists went after some of those who supported a $1.5-billion-a-year tax hike pushed by then-Gov. Mark Warner (D).

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that these Republican-in-name-only lawmakers claimed tax hikes were necessary because there was no room to cut spending.

But the real problem is that too many Republicans in Richmond decided that the cesspool of big government was actually a hot tub. So rather than drain the swamp (yes, I’m mixing my metaphors), they decided they wanted more money to waste.

But they needed more money to maintain and support bigger government. So they disregarded their anti-tax promises.

And two of them paid the price at the polls. That may not sound like much since 34 GOP lawmakers sided with the left and voted for the tax hike.

But remember that it’s very hard to defeat incumbent politicians. So when a pair of 20-year incumbents lose, you can be sure that other lawmakers now will be far less likely to side with the political class instead of the people back home.

By the way, what makes the story in Virginia so pathetic is that Republicans normally get seduced into tax increases because of stupidity. As the Charlie Brown parody indicates, they get tricked into believing higher revenues will be used to lower deficits.

But in this case, the RINO Republicans openly admitted that they wanted more revenue to expand the state budget.

Heck, they didn’t just deserve to lose. They should have been tarred-and-feathered.

Make sure you don’t save an injured deer in Virginia. Not only will the bureaucrats take the animal away from you, but they’ll nail you with three misdemeanor charges just for good measure. I guess the legal approach would have been to let the dogs kill the helpless creature. Here’s part of the WTOP.com report.

A Broadway man who nursed a young deer back to health has lost the animal to Virginia wildlife officials and faces three misdemeanor charges. Doyle Ritchie says he didn’t realize he was breaking the law when he kept the deer in his backyard after it was hit by a car and later attacked by dogs. But recently, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries took the deer and Ritchie was charged with the misdemeanors, including illegal possession of a wild animal.

With Intrade.com showing an 83 percent chance that Obamacare will be approved, let’s console ourselves by looking at a bit of good news. The Wall Street Journal has a good editorial today lauding the new Republicans governors of New Jersey and Virginia, both of whom are reducing spending. But unlike in Washington, where a spending cut is so loosely defined that politicians can increase spending and simultaneously claim to be cutting spending (so long as they increase spending by less than previously planned), Governors Christie and McDonnell actually are proposing to spend less next year than is being spent this year. That hasn’t happened in Washington since 1965 – and it certainly won’t happen under Obama’s phony spending freeze:

Republicans Chris Christie (New Jersey) and Bob McDonnell (Virginia) were elected in November in states that had seen years of tax increases and explosive spending growth. Mr. Christie inherited a $2.2 billion deficit in 2010 and it is expected to grow to $11 billion in 2011. Mr. McDonnell is confronting the largest deficit in Virginia history—$4.2 billion for fiscal years 2011 and 2012, out of a $32 billion two-year general fund. This week Mr. Christie proposed his first budget, calling for a 9% cut in the state’s $32 billion annual general fund. He is not talking about phony Washington-style “cuts” against a baseline that automatically increases each year. The governor is asking Trenton to spend $2.9 billion less in 2011 than it did in 2009, shrinking the budget to $29.3 billion, which he admits will be “painful, but what other choice do we have?” …Mr. Christie deserves special applause for his willingness to battle government employee unions. His office calculates that New Jersey’s unionized employees have carved out health-care benefits that are 41% higher than the typical Fortune 500 company offers. A teacher who has contributed $62,000 toward her pension, and nothing toward medical benefits, can retire and receive over her lifetime a $1.4 million retirement package and an additional $215,000 in health-care payments. …Meanwhile, Mr. McDonnell is preparing to sign a 2011-12 budget of $14.5 billion that will reduce state spending below 2006 levels ($14.8 billion). The $2.3 billion in cuts include a reduction in state employee pay, halving arts funding, selling off state-owned liquor stores, and cutting Medicaid payments by $300 million and aid to school districts by $700 million. Mr. McDonnell argues the cuts are fair because school spending has risen 60% in the last decade, while Medicaid is up more than 75%. He has already signed legislation to allow off-shore oil drilling, which the state says could raise $5 billion in revenues over the next 30 years. (Are you listening, California?) Both governors are under attack from liberal interest groups and the media for not raising taxes, but the public wants government to restrain itself the way families have already had to do. New Jersey’s property tax rates are the nation’s highest and its top income tax rate is close to the highest at 8.97%. Mr. Christie will have to negotiate his way through a legislature that is dominated by Democrats who answer to the public unions, but as he told them: This “is what the people sent me here to do.” Virginia Democrats raised taxes twice in six years and should consider New Jersey’s punishing rates and fleeing taxpayers an example not to emulate.